We don't know how she actually died, if because of what she did so well for so long for a living, we have much more of an impression, false and not, of how she lived, the price of doing such things too often in a way that gratifies our desire to… Read full post »

I think that's fair to say, USAF retired license plate 4YC00B37, that Nixon would put the B-52s on the tarmac, open the doors on the Mintutemen's max-uploaded silos, :), push out the Polaris now max-uploaded Tridents,:) and as the B-52s, and now all the B-1 and B2s, started to fly towards… Read full post »

Bashar al Assad wasn't even supposed to be President of Syria, as he was thought of as a mild-mannered geek and doctor (opthamologist) without the temperment necessary to follow his very stern father Hafiz al Assad, the latter a career military officer and political plotter of the first order.

Like t… Read full post »

The Arab League is the expression of an ideal that's always been imperfect in practice as to a desire for Arab unity that began to emerge in the late nineteenth century.

One should most definitely not overestimate the unity of the Arabs as to peacemaking in Syria, as the entire history… Read full post »

It's curious how it doesn't appear anymore on the MSN feed, but, there was a major cyber attack on the CIA's website that took it offline for hours yesterday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9076314/CIA-website-hacked-in-attack-claimed-by-shadowy-cyber-group-Anonymous.html… Read full post »

 http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/10/10376305-tango-down-anonymous-claims-attacks-on-cia-alabama-state-sites

Well, surprise, surprise, surprise Sarge! Gollee, Sarge, that's really sum-thin, ain't it, to have Al-a-bam-a picked on the same day as the See Eye Ay?

That's sure an imp… Read full post »

Baathism is a curious political movement, although right now, its one regime standing: the Assad regime of Bashar al Assad.

Baathism has some bad features and some good features.

The bad feature is that so far while in power in Iraq and Syria, it has mutated into a Leninist-style party dictatorship,… Read full post »

"Every picture you take can be posted to the WorldWide Web, which might have adverse consequences for the Corps, and for Other Americans."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OZS6wem7OQ

"For example, although pissing on enemy dead is a time honored tradition, as is taking ears and heads and other associ… Read full post »

That seems wise to me, as some people, if not Methodists per my understanding of the Church's teachings, feel strongly about that, just as others feel strongly in the other direction.

That's why always we're free to donate money on a tax deductible basis to charities like Planned Parenthood that… Read full post »

For Stergios Skaperdas

Its not a fun process to have your own government come close to totally defaulting like Greece, and that's not a reason for gloating here, as that's throwing stones in a glass house in the making.

Greece in the end will accept the deal, or it would… Read full post »

Alan Turing was a British mathematician born 100 years ago this year, who apparently committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple, like Snow White, after being convicted for the then British crime of a homosexual act with an adult.

If you can answer that question, "Does P=NP," you get a million… Read full post »

V Osksana Volchnkova e Hong Xiaojie. Hao jiu bu jian Hong, ni hao ma?

Ni hui ting. Hen hao women shou.

The leak, and of course, denial, that Saudi Arabia would acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan should Iran become a nuclear armed state is part of the reason such an Iranian… Read full post »

That's the real lesson as the banks correctly sign off on the Attorney General's settlement, the lesson being that although illegal, robo-signing documents was also somewhat inevitable given the massive presence of robo-mortgages, i.e. mortgages as full blown securities.

There are pluses and minuses… Read full post »

Today's release of the news that the MEK, the most popular acronym for the Iranian freedom fighting and terrorist group the Mujeheddin e Khalq, is working hand in glove with the Israeli intelligence service Mossad to decimate Iranian nuclear scientists with car bombs and such has made a bit of a… Read full post »

V Oksana Volchenkova, moye Rosskaya droozhba.

There are certainly risks in such a move, up to and including a Great Power War, in the latter of which the use of nuclear weapons has to be considered as a non-zero possibility, if not a large one.

Russian science after all had… Read full post »

For Tom Brunnell and Bill Koetzle UCI Ph.Ds 1996, Congressional Fellows 1997-98, and twins from another mother forever, if always on exactly the opposite side of the partisan line, which has always been their charm to know: the UCI Doppelganger Effect.

Of course as to contemporary politics, most peo… Read full post »

First there is the question of: Why would Russia protect Bashar al Assad?

The reason is partly that Syria is an old friend of Moscow, as to why they are protecting Assad in part, if its also the case that Moscow has a more negative, some would say realistic, perspective on… Read full post »

The most important single work on American Democracy has just that title in reverse: Democracy in America by Alexis DeTocqueville, written in 1831.

His theory as to why he wrote the work was correct then, and more importantly now, as to predictive power of observing a country when it is young… Read full post »

https://www.westernsky.com/LandingPages/ws/ai/Application.aspx?trackingid=471&phone=8886592411&subid=ABWS.

I saw this advertismement linked above that perhaps some OS bloggers in hard time could use last night while watching Steven King's Thinner, and in the context of working in a law office… Read full post »

That's pretty funny to see Jejeune Podiatrist's post over there where Jack of Heart pointed out that some little birdy was going around telling people that I was CA, as I call him, for Caracella Ameunesis, his original screen name as I met him online what would now be three years… Read full post »

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46288307/ns/business-retail/

Gator is a 130 pound male pit bull of the orange and black stripe variety, while Synphony is a white female pit bull of the female persuasion, and they are both, along with the dachshund named Ruby, a 5 pound dog that likes to pick fo… Read full post »

Russia and China, in the real world, are why we went to Afghanistan in the first place, and Iraq, since we were gettting to strong for their taste, and so the Russians and Chinese wanted to bleed the American hegemon; xorosho e hen hao.

That's what really happened, if its… Read full post »

I was rooting for the Patriots, since I lived there long enough to always love Boston. I had always been a Celtics fan, and so hanging out by the Garden and watching the Big Three make a title run was really cool, until of course game seven.

For the naysayers on… Read full post »

There's a lot of talk now about taking out Iran, and we may have no choice as Americans in that if Israel goes ahead and does that anyway, but, it has always been the case that Russian reaction is a matter of Great Power War or peace, at least potentially.

That… Read full post »

Exit, Voice, and Loyalty is a classic book by Albert Hirschman about three strategies people use in organizations to deal with life's inevitable discontents in organizations, organizations of which OS is one de facto, as to the ultimate nature of those who do the writing that is OS.

As to the… Read full post »